Although there have been odes present in the yard for at least a couple of weeks, I had yet to find the time to “go hunting”.
Finally, yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, I spent a bit of time prowling the edges of the yard with my dragonfly rig. There were a number of species present with chalk-fronted corporals (Libellula julia) being the most common.
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I haven’t had much time for making photographs in the past few weeks…I know, where are my priorities!
However, we are back to owning only one house and there is only one more week (plus a week of finals) in the semester… so things are looking good for the near future!
On Thursday afternoon, I headed out at about 5 PM to make some photographs; I had to be in Jaffrey for the Monadnock Camera Club meeting at 7 PM so I took a meandering route from Antrim to Jaffrey. There were nice skies, good reflections on the water and I was only ten minutes late to the meeting! Two hours… two nice photographs; a pretty successful outing if you ask me!
The photo of the squirrel is a grab shot through the glass looking out on our deck. This fellow spent some time watching us eat breakfast one morning. I guess that he was hoping for a hand out!
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Yesterday afternoon, I took a stroll up Brimstone Corner Rd. and Knight’s Road just to see what was out. I planned to stop at some of the logged out areas since I expected to find some darners out and about taking advantage of the sunny afternoon.
The clouds began to gather shortly after I headed out and I only saw a handful of odes (a couple of darners and a couple of Autumn Meadowhawks in the first clearing I investigated; after that, nothing.
There were plenty of other things to keep me occupied… chipmunks abounded in the stone walls on both sides of the road. Turning leaves and other vegetation also made for interesting subjects as did the old skidder near the fork in Knight’s Road.
At said fork in road, I encountered a hawk of some kind. It came around the bend in the road only ten or twelve feet off the ground. When it saw me it made a very sharp turn into the woods and was gone; way too fast to get a photo. I could not decide if it was just cruising the road or if I had scared it up off the ground. A quick search of the area revealed no remnants of prey on the ground.
On the way back down Knight’s Road, I stopped to inspect the a tent platform in the woods. I sat down on the edge of the platform, laid the camera down and doffed my backpack. I had been sitting in quiet contemplation for no more than five minutes when I sensed a presence nearby.
Looking up, I saw a black bear with its front paws atop a stone wall maybe a hundred feet away. I am not sure who was more surprised! We sat looking at each other for some seconds, each of us contemplating our next move! As I reached for my camera, she/he turned around and headed off into the woods making a huffing sound as she/he went. At one point she/he turned around to see what I was doing but she/he kept going.
At this point I realized that there would be no more quiet contemplation given my level of serum adrenaline, so I packed up and headed on my way!
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The first signs of autumn in New England are the red leaves of swamp maples which ring most wet lands. Last weekend, these were abundant and I headed out to photograph them despite the uncooperative weather — all of these photographs were taken in a drizzle and, on a couple of occasions, I had to retreat to the truck and sit out a shower.
Twice, while I was concentrating on the landscape, I was surprised by nearby birds. The heron was not difficult to get a shot of (except for the fading light) as he/she was intent on hunting. The pheasant on the other hand was only in view long enough for three or four frames before it ducked back into the undergrowth.
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Yesterday, as I sat down to lunch on the deck I noticed a darner alight on the flowers in one of Joan’s planters hanging on the deck rail. Lunch was delayed while I went at got the camera from the house. I got a few shots through the foliage with an unusual (for darners) lateral/ventral view. As I went to move around to see if I could also get a dorsal view she (I think!) took off; such is my luck with darners.
As I headed back to the table I noticed that a grasshopper had landed on the table, so lunch was further delayed! I took a few shots with the “ode rig” (32 mm extension tube on the 70-300 mm lens) but decided that I needed more magnification and added the other two extension tubes in the set. This set up is nearly impossible to use! The range over which one can focus is very small. And even with the camera sitting on the table most of the frames were not critically sharp. Even with all of that magnification, the shot shown is only about half a frame.
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New Hampshire Audubon runs a raptor observatory on Pack Monadnock (in Miller State Park) during migration season (September and October) each year. I visited here a couple of years ago with my friend Dana on a pretty slow day. Yesterday afternoon, Joan and I spent a few hours there on a fairly busy day. I don’t know what the exact final official total was but is was somewhere around 130 raptors, including three adult bald eagles. (We were fortunate enough to see one of them.)
Photographing birds in flight (even relatively large birds) is really tough! Locating a bird in the viewfinder at high magnification and then keeping them in focus requires much skill and therefore much practice; something I definitely need more of!
The summit of Pack Monadanock is a good place to photograph these birds in flight as you can often get them as almost eye level which, in my view, makes for much better photographs than the typical “looking up at the birds belly” flying bird photo.
I missed one of the best opportunities of the afternoon, a relatively close in bird which caught a dragonfly in midair and proceeded to eat it according to the comments from the others watching. I missed it all with both binoculars and camera. Oh well… maybe next time!
All of these photos represent fairly heavy crops (less than half a frame) and so will not make great prints. The red-tailed hawk in the second photo is probably not a migrant. It spent a fairly long time (10-15 minutes maybe) out in front of us. It often hovered in one place and looking down as shown here; clearly hunting behavior.
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Labor Day weekend… the end of summer… the winding down of ode season… alas!
Yesterday, I headed down to “our” beaver swamp hoping to get photos of darners; I was partially successful. The weather was nice and sunny and the temperature was in the mid-70’s.
Darners are large showy dragonflies that are a source of great frustration to this photographer. In late summer/early fall these are often the most abundant odes about. One sees them hunting over open areas (lawns, swamps, hill tops, etc.) in large numbers.
However, one rarely sees them perched and when they do perch it is often ten or twelve feet (or higher) in a tree. Also, when perched they seem to be very skittish. Thus my photographic frustration!
One my way down to the swamp, I was able to photograph a nondescript light brown moth. These moths are fairly common in the woods, but rarely sit still long enough to locate in the viewfinder before fluttering off again. My impression is that this is just their normal behavior, not that they are scared off by my presence. This one sat still long enough to be photographed.
The “situation” at the swamp was as I expected. The water level was very high because of hurricane Irene and there were many darners hunting at grass/sedge height and over the open water. There were still meadowhawks about, although in smaller numbers that earlier in the season. The numbers of spreadwings was very small and I did not see any other damselflies.
I stuck mainly to the edges where I could watch the trees for perching darners. Darners tend to be very well camouflaged when perched but with a careful search one can sometimes espy them on tree trunks or hanging vertically from branches. I spotted three within photographing height in the couple of hours I was out. I got a decent photograph of one of them… such is the life of a wildlife photographer!
The first one I spotted as a set of wings sticking out on either side of a small dead branch. It flew off before I could maneuver body and equipment through the tall grass and fallen tree trunks hidden therein. I can hear Joan now… “A good photographer…”!
The second individual also flew off before I got close enough.
I did, however, manage to get a couple of shots of the third individual. It was perched seven or eight feet off the ground. But I managed to stand on a tussock to lessen the angle and got a few shots before it too flew off.
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The light on the swamp starts to deteriorate shortly after five these days as there is a tall ridge just to its north and west. As I meandered back up the hill towards the house, I noticed the amazing diversity of fungi in the woods and began photographing these.
Fungi are somewhat easier than odes to photograph as they (fungi) never fly away! Fungi are somewhat harder to photograph than odes since they (fungi) are small and grow out of the ground. Thus, one needs to pretty much lay flat on the ground to frame them. At my age, getting down on the ground is not a problem… getting up again, however, is another story!
At one point, while I was laying on the ground near where I encountered the bear a few weeks ago, I heard a rustling noise in the woods coming from the same direction as the bear had come.
This time it was a porcupine! He/she just meandered along maybe fifty to seventy five feet away and I don’t think here it ever noticed me. I got the extension tube off of the camera and the 70-300 mm lens back on but I never did get a clear shot of him… way too many trees in the way! If he had come close enough though I would have got a perfect eye-level shot, as I was still lying on my belly!
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Chapter 1
We have had turkeys in our yard since early spring. While the wild strawberries in the lawn lasted a tom, two hens and three or four juveniles would show up most every morning. Lately, only a single hen and juvenile have been coming by.
Turkeys are very wary birds and I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting good photos. Their hearing seems to be quite good and every time I even stepped outside, they headed for the woods. Yesterday, however, I was able to get a decent photo without leaving the house.
We noticed the hen and juvenile standing on the large rock just off our back deck and I was able to use the house as a blind. I took the photo shown below through the French door (both the glass and the screen) which opens onto the deck.. not bad!
Chapter 2
Joan headed out for a kayak ride on the lake late this afternoon. About quarter to five (4:47 to be exact according to the caller ID) the phone rings and it is my spotter-in-chief calling from the lake (down by the public beach). She is calling to inform me that there is a juvenile bald eagle eating a fish on a rock across the lake from the beach.
I, of course, drop every thing and head out the door in a flash… the “bird lens” was still on the camera from yesterday’s turkey shoot! I shot the first frame at 4:57 according to the exif data. I spent less than fifteen minutes watching, shooting and listening… the bird in the first two instances and Steve (a nice fellow at the picnic table on the point) in the third. Then the bird flew off.
I was back home and processing the images by quarter to six. The photos are not great. The light was flat and the bird was far away even with the 500 mm lens but I hope it makes a good story!
Rats… I was hoping to get this posted before Joan got back home, but I hear her putting away her gear in the garage now, at about 6:40.
Ain’t technology wonderful? Cellphones, caller ID, EXIF data and digital photography in general, WordPress and the internet in general… from Joan spotting the eagle to “publication” in roughly two hours!!!!
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Thursday was Eva’s Marsh WMA. On Friday we plopped the kayaks in at Carpenter’s Marsh WMA.
Both parcels are quite near each other (about a mile apart “as the crow flies”) in Hancock and are similar in many ways; although Carpenter’s is quite a bit larger. Both parcels are “enhanced” wetlands… that is they both have a man-made dam to raise the water level. Both are also managed as water fowl habitat.
The weather on Friday afternoon was warm and sunny. Thus the odes were out in force.
There were large darners everywhere patrolling at grass/sedge top level and occasionally dipping down into the vegetation after prey. I did not see one perched all afternoon!
There were also many meadowhawks and spreadwings about with a few other species in the mix in smaller numbers.
The vegetation at the two sites is quite different. Eva’s Marsh has large areas of pickerel weed and there were many water lilies and much eastern purple bladderwort; spatterdock is absent. At Carpenter’s pickerel weed along with grasses and sedges dominate. Rushes are also present and the main flowering plant we saw was spatterdock. The arrowhead was also in bloom at Carpenter’s.
As for birds, we spent a bit of time with a group of eastern kingbirds both coming and going. They were perched in a patch of snags and we enjoyed watching their swooping forays for insects.
Our second pass by the kingbirds was just as the sun was going behind the ridge which encloses the wetland. Thus the really warm color in the last photo is not enhanced at all and less that thirty seconds after snapping that photo the light was the dull, flat and blue light of evening.
On the way back to the put in, we also had fun watching a riled up beaver. He/she kept swimming away from us and slapping its tail. I think that it was leading us away from a juvenile. A one point while my eye was on the beaver ahead, I heard a loud plop of something dropping into the water just behind my right shoulder.
Halfheartedly, I took a few photos knowing that a small brown lump in the water was not going to make for great images but hoping that I might catch an interesting pose during a tail slap; none are worth showing.
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Yesterday afternoon we loaded the kayaks on the truck and headed to Eva’s Marsh WMA in Hancock. We spend a few hours there and only explored the “front” (i.e. before the first beaver dam) of this ninety eight acre plot. I guess that we’ll have to go back again sometime.
There were not many odes about on this cool afternoon with a high overcast… good light for photography! However, the water lilies and the eastern purple (or spotted) bladderwort were both in bloom and kept me entertained!
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We also saw a numbers of animals… birds, frogs and painted turtles. (No turtle photos worth showing from this trip though.)
I also spent quality time with a solitary sandpiper twice… going and coming. He/she was much more concerned about the hunting than about the nearby human in the bright orange kayak. I was able to approach quite closely… good thing since all I had was my 300 mm lens!
We also had fun watching a group of barn swallows… at one point there were five individuals in the tree in the photos below. We also saw a kingfisher and a raptor (probably a hawk) both at a distance so no photos this time… oh well!
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